The Honeymoon
by PhilosopherCat
Summary: Inspired by 'Jane Eyre'. Tells the story of what happened to Mr.Rochester when Jane left him. Might have to be upgraded to PG later. This is my first fan fic so please R
1. Chapter 1

This story is based on the novel 'Jane Eyre' written by Charlotte Bronte in 1847. The characters are drawn from the book, but this is not a passage from it. This is a separate story which explores a time in the life of the other main character which is only hinted at in the novel. I have tried to follow the clues and to tell this part of the story which was never described in the novel at length.  
  
If you haven't read 'Jane Eyre' you may read this story. You won't be confused, but you might end up spoiling yourself for the novel itself. I will post in the 'subject' line displaying at what point you should stop reading if you intend to read the novel (big time spoiler- I'm serious!) . I have about 3 'chapters' done so far. It's in a rough state, actually. I just thought it would be interesting to see what people I don't know have to say about it. I have no idea how long it will be when I'm finished. In the words of Michaelangelo- it will be finished when it is finished! (something like that, only in Italian).  
  
Read the book- it's very good readin' !   
  
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He heard the coach to Witcross approaching; he heard the jangle of the harness and the shaking of the car as the horses bounded along the road past his estate. His thoughts were elsewhere. He hadn't slept all night. What a sterile pit was life for Edward Rochester! A wretched creature, bereft of hope and innocence. Here, within the walls he owned was the last, sweet breath of life, of reformation into what he once was, long ago.  
  
The coach stopped near the gate of Thornfield Hall and idled there for a moment. The sun had only just begun to rise over the desolate moor. 'I am that moor; those twisted and grotesque shapes most suit my tortured spirit. Have I not suffered long? I am not to blame for this!" He muttered to himself after a dark night of tortured thought. Resuming his walk across his chamber, he breathed a long sigh. 'No, I am not to blame. And she will come. She will come to me in her goodness.' He looked, stopping near the tall portrait of his father.  
  
'Goodness,' he enunciated. 'Her goodness.' His father's face oppressed him. Rowland Rochester gazed on his son; a smirking alabaster figure looking down on a brown, ruffled and embittered man. Edward resumed his pacing. 'Have I heard that goodness- that love conquers all? And she does love me, and has accepted me as I am. Knowing-' he paused. he became frantic, looking about the room. 'What? What does 'knowing' have to do with the workings of love? Should knowledge be the porticullis that bars me forever from, if not paradise, at least purgatory?' he shouted, this time. 'Knowledge, I defy!' he snarled. 'And custom- that smear on the face of civilized life! I will have my Jane, and we shall defy worlds beyond this and we will do it all for goodness and love's sake!'  
  
All was quiet once more. Over the sound of the retreating coach, a bird of the morning was heard. The first golden spears of the sun broke through the windows and stretched upon the floor.  
  
'It is morning!' he whispered as he held back the curtains. He storde to the door of his chamber. 'Leah! John?" There was a swift shuffle of feet along the passage, and then a housemaid appeared at the top of the stairs.  
  
'Mr. Rochester, sir?' said Leah.  
  
'Is Miss Eyre awake yet?'  
  
'I'll go see, sir' said Leah but as she trotted down the hall to Jane's room she was followed closely by Mr.Rochester. She knocked on the large oak door.  
  
'Miss Eyre? You up miss?' she said. There was no answer. Mr. Rochester hesitated, then pressed on the door- it was unlocked.   
  
'Jane,' he said tenderly, full of expectation, 'It's Edward.' There was still no answer.  
  
At once he felt the floor give way beneath him. He shuddered, and felt feverish and went pale. 'Dear God!' he cried and without another word broke into his bride's room. 'Jane!' But the room was empty. He slumped and sighed. 'She's only gone. She's probably gone down for breakfast, or taken a walk. That's just like Jane.'  
  
'Breakfast, sir? I got up right early an' I never but saw her anywhere abouts,' said Leah.  
  
'A walk, then. I'll wait for her on the road.'  
  
' 'Ere,' said Leah. 'Abide while I fetch your cloak. It's all miserable on the road today, raining a while looks like.'  
  
'What? Oh, very well,' said Mr. Rochester. While Leah was gone he looked around. Everything was just as it had been the day before when they had left for church. Leah was quick about fetching the cloak and he made his way to the kitchen. He made himself a small parcel of bread and cheese, and then he left Thornfield Hall for the road to Millcote. 


	2. Chapter 2

He walked for a long time around his lands as a soft, misty rain coming in off the moors hovered cold around his face. After walking for some time he reached a stone wall near one of his fields. Some of his tenants were busily herding sheep within. One of these tenants approached him.  
  
'Good day t'ye, Mr. Rochester, sir,' he said, tugging his forelock.  
  
'Good day George, and how goes it?' he said.  
  
'Ah fine, sir. But what takes you out on a cold morning like this, and yesterday be your wedding day?'  
  
'Obviously word travels slowly- it had to be postponed,' said Mr. Rochester, added hastily.  
  
'Oh!' said the farmer, 'Now it all makes sense. Son was sayin' 'e saw Miss Eyre this mornin' by the road t' Whitcross right early.'  
  
'The road to Whitcross? It looks like I've been going about this the wrong way. I thought I might catch her on her walk.'  
  
'Naw,' said the farmer. 'Naw, she ne taked naw walk, sir. Son saw 'er climb int' th' coach.'  
  
'The coach!' exclaimed Mr. Rochester. 'What coach?!'   
  
'Aye, the coach to Whitcross. She caught it right early.'  
  
'No, I don't believe-' Mr. Rochester stood still on the road, watching the long stretch he had already covered and in the distance, past the hall, the road continuing blankly over the moorland.  
  
His eyes grew wide and wild as he slowly walked down the road. He dropped his parcel and began to run. He ran down the road, then, leaping the bounds, charged over the rought moorland, straight for the looping highway. He clambored over the rockey waste, roughly pushing aside the brambles, the short trees in his path. His breath grew ragged, he threw off his cloak and continued on, mile after mile.  
  
Panting, he settled exhausted upon a stone high above the moor, where he could see the road, still miles away. 'Jane,' he panted. 'Where- why?!' he spat. He looked at himself in a pool of water forming in the stone. He was drawn, pale, ragged and desperate. 'You're a fool!' he said at length, and splashed the water from him. 'Hah!' he scoffed. 'After all this time Edward Fairfax can still play a role- play it to the hilt! Hah! You?' He drawled to himself, 'you find a woman to love you, eh? Well, see now! You great baby! See what it was that she truly wanted- position and wealth!'   
  
He threw his arms up over his head. 'Oh! But she won't accept gifts and has lived poor her entire life, you say? A ploy! And you fell for it- again! Hah hah!' He laughed roughly as staggered against the granite. 'Oh, I am frantic. I must calm my blasted nerves, or this sprite will destroy me!' For a moment he sat, staring at the ground until he again errupted. 'Is this the crown given to those you pursue virtue? Suffering and more pain?! I've tried the path of sin and it led me to a place very much like this. Yes, it was Paris. Hah!' he laughed a wild, savage laugh.   
  
He sat for hours in silence. Shivering, the sting of the cold wind on his face brought him out of his mourning. He slowly arose. 'Jane,' he said to the wind. 'I would have been content. I could have survived with you only as my friend, to never have you as my own. But this I cannot bear,' he said quietly and as a fact. 'To know that I am a fraud, a hated fraud in your eyes. That I must own,' he said with effort. 'I should have said something.' 


	3. Chapter 3

Mr. Rochester ran desperately back to Thornfield Hall. He would try to find Jane and explain to her that he never meant to force her, that he would never harm her, even in his frequent passions. She would stay with him, on his estate as Adele's governess if she wished, or he would purchase a residene for her nearby so they could enjoy eachother's society. He had wanted and hoped for too much, he concluded; no one ever tastes such perfect contentment in this earthly life as that which he felt he had nearly grasped. Indeed, he had held in his arms his soul's and heart's only desire. Now, pressing it too hard to his own heart, it had fled from him. Life without Jane's comfort, and her mere presence, once he had known such happiness to be possible, would be a mere farce and a mockery of what it had been for the briefest of moments. His mind recoiled, his heart bled and his soul cried out at the thought of Jane's absence. If only he could but see her, he felt, his rioting soul would rest still and be calmed.  
  
Hope began to take root in his cracked and bleeding heart as he thought of the compromise he would strike. All that he had to do was find her. Hope grew like a green blade in cool, damp soil washed by the spring rains and increased by the sun until he once more arrived at Thornfield Hall.  
  
When he arrived, Mr. Rochester sought several of his servants. In a few moments he had sent John to pursue the coach, and had several letters written and sent to everyone he thought might know of or hear from Jane. He sat a long while trying to remember anyone, friends or family that Jane had ever mentioned, but there were but few of those. He sent his messengers out that very day and waited.  
  
As the first day went by, Mr. Rochester allowed himself to feel the stirrings of hope that he would find Jane soon and be able to put everything right. Even then, however, he remembered how she had gazed upon him, the last time he had seen her. Her despairing, dissapointed yet resolute gaze had terrified him. How it returned in his mind's eye to entreat him to realize that for her there could be no ompromise. Again and again he banished that look, and forbade his mind to dwell on its frown and to hear the words of parting she had spoken. Nevertheless, a fire was slowly smoldering in his heart. The ashes of the pain of his former life, when he felt himself sliding, and collapsing like a ruin, or worse- a living being as desolate and empty, having neither true substance nor character. He had been stunned and appalled at himself yet he could do nothing to halt his fall. At that time the fire had burned at its brightest, consuming him and changing him. He had thought, at length, that it would always be so. Then, one evening when he feared his return to Thornfield would only increase the flames that tortured him, he met Jane Eyre. She was like ie to that fire within. The more the fire caused him to hurl abuse, to swear and act churlish the sooner she seemed to sniff out the flames little by little until they had been reduced to ash.  
  
With Jane gone, perhaps forever, the fire was awakening in those ashes. He fought moment by moment to believe that he could yet be the man that he had always wanted to be, and that he would have this miraculous woman as his friend, if not his wife. It was a struggle to maintain his optimism, even as he flet hope slowly withering around his blasted heart.  
  
He gradually found himself seeking out the places Jane would often be when she was still at Thornfield. Once or twice he walked the main galleries and the hall where once he had danced with Blanche Ingram while Jane had sat in a corner. He imagined she sat there still and that her eyes furtively followed his movements around the room, as he had seen her do as he stole glances at her in reflecting glass and metal. Now he imagined he took her hand in his and tried to lead her in the dance, but she would turn away and quietly remark that she doesn't know how to dance.  
  
During these times when alone, Mr. Rochester seemed calm but gradually a sense of doom was gathering around him and threatening to awake his passions once more. He had recieved no word back from Gateshead Hall which he half-suspected to be deserted , or sold and the letter from Lowood claimed no knowledge of Miss Eyre after her employment at Thornfield Hall. All other avenues had been tried, over and again but all was in vain. As door after door seemed to close, and the vacant air which now alone occupied Jane's familiar places grew more empty to him, he drifted further downwards into despair. Only one strand of hope remained about his heart, holding him together. It would take John two days or more to ride to Whitcross after the coach. If he managed to catch it they might point him out another, yet further distant town. It occurred to him that the longer John was in returning the brighter his news would be. 


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: A short bit. There's much more to this but I'm polishing it all up. I decided not to write it all in one go, so I have tons of little bits from the story arc on paper. You can read some of the rough work at http/pillars-of-fire. This is actually a combination of two timed writings, and so is a first draft. Why am I posting it then? Well, because I haven't posted in three years and I need feedback since I would like to publish it when it is finished (I've published some poetry, but I'd really like to try something more substantial).

Dark, his eyes shone deeply with a glistening, glaring light. He had cried, he had wept bitterly when no one could hear him. His heart howled in the stillness and would not raise a cry, up through the throat, giving relief but instead the heart tyrannically help the howling within. And the wildness of that cry nearly tore the frame apart. The frame of the man, not the heart, shook with the effort of escape but knew the enslavement would last yet. Now there was a chance, a small change chance for a freedom from the destruction of fear and the pain of remembrance.

"I wish I knew, one way or the other," he moaned. Across the room, Leah started. Put down a tray and looked up enquiringly. "Where is she now?" he continued. Leah touched her hand, touched the hand to her face and put the silver on the tray, picked up the tray and then departed to the other side of the room. Meanwhile Mr. Rochester continued sitting, face turned down, eyes bent, all haunched, inclined in the chair, looking at vacancy, at the floor. "where is she now?" It was a whisper, a lost child in pain, seeking solace. Leah left the room, closed the door softly behind her.

The moment the door closed, he reached his hands over his eyes and wept silently. After a time he slid the hands down, held them over his moist mouth, panting, striving to restrain the sob. He held them. He turned his shining, depths of black eyes to the whiteness of the old plastered ceiling. Blinking back the tears, the eyes turned along the moulding, searching while within the concealed thoughts tried in vain to seek what had been torn away. Unwillingly, the gaping wound's healing, the aid and prop torn. Sough her in vain, shuddered and heaven in painful spasms of guilt, of love yet burning without the fuel to feel the flame.

He stood up, fingers grasping at the sleeves of his coat, hugging himself in, trying to hold himself in. The inward thoughts multiplied. He turned and viewed the window. The light filtered in golden shimmers through the diagonal panes, black leading. Showing dust in the dimness above the carpet on the floor. He rose, moved with a long motion, uncertain. Back and then over to the window. He still held his arms close. Much was in fear, at the stake. He was removed from thought in thought from his hope of living.Yet fear was not of his own desperation and desire. He was piteous, terrorised by one notion predominant. The past had seemed an oppression of the will, driving him- the fiery goad of hellfire- towards a certain end unwritten unspun by Nature. Those that would soar above cloud, hateful beam and storm, fell, rolled, was sullied, broken in the darkened, dusk of a mud-drenched brake. And now where was she? He had to speak, the mental murder- turned the past. Made impotent, the real came upon him, churning wisdom, cautioning the wailing passions.

"I've killed her," he said. he shook his head, caught his arms closer. Shook his head. "Oh, no," he groaned. "no, no" And he sat back, released the arms, wiped his nose, and sniffed back the choking again. he examined the progress in his mind and knew there could be only the one outcome. A woman, disconnected, unprotected and alone. No money, no home, no friends or family. Her mind- was it feeling sympathy with his own? God help her! To be alone, distressed, unprotected and youthful. The inner tormenter of his soul turned upon him, lacking ower to sting. The dread of remorse- of his error- had died. The loathing of the innocent, naive wild boy who stumbled and feel had vanished. The moistness of the lead drying with the sun. For now he was gone to a deeper sin. He had been the shepherd- not who murdered the ewe-lamb but the one who led her to desolation, grief, and sin. Perverter of innocence. In his body, the poor spirit shrunk from unwilling wrong, begged relief from the mind and found no mercy. This is where the hot tears welled- out of the exertions of that soul- the bright thing, encased and hampered- fettered, It had killed its own kind- a self muder. A suicide without death where one part of an entire soul must struggle on in a desolate world, abandoned and maimed without its life.


End file.
